The problem with thinking

Submitted by emmajane on January 2, 2012 - 3:33pm

To say the least, 2011 was an interesting year. My first solo-authored book was published, I was a Green candidate in the federal election. I launched a new training program, I released seven new information products, I travelled less, but took up beekeeping. I got a ukulele. The list goes on and on. And even though I wrote thousands of words in 2011, what I didn’t do was capture my thoughts. I guess that’s the problem with thinking too much—there isn’t necessarily a place to put the thoughts while they’re still forming.

I’ve been thinking about open source software and how it both enables and limits me; I’ve been thinking about volunteerism and community participation; I’ve been thinking about how we frame the questions in politics; I’ve been thinking about fundraising; I’ve been thinking about my bees and hand made lotion; I’ve been thinking about information storage and how smart I used to be (sadly the papers themselves weren’t archived). I’ve been thinking about how I don’t mind playing games when there is an occasional redistribution of wealth (or in our case: buttons). I’ve been thinking about privacy and entitlement too. But not necessarily how those two go together. I’ve been thinking about my information products and their impact on the world…or perhaps their lack of impact on the world. Like I said, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.

This year I’ll be working on the second edition of my first book, Front End Drupal. There are a lot of updates in the new edition. So once again I’ll be spending a lot of time writing, and thinking, but not necessarily writing about what I’m thinking. It’s not a new year’s resolution, but I’d like to write more about what I’m thinking so that one day I can go back and look at what I was thinking about and say to myself, “I used to be smart.” Or perhaps, “Look at how much smarter I’ve become.”

Apart from being no such thing as thinking too much that's a beautiful bit of writing, it has a pared down lyrical quality that I'm quite jealous of. I guess thats what becomes of being an international superstar author though. Have a good 2012 I hope it summarises as well as 2011 did!

Oh and ukuleles are very cool :)

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